3. Miyajima Island
We left our hotel around 7:30, catching a train 35 minutes out to a ferry port. The ferry only took 10 minutes to cross, and we had a nice view from the top.
On the island we saw deer for the first time chilling. Some even used the crossing!
The island had far more to offer than we had time for. For instance it had an aquarium and museum we didn’t get the change to explore. We probably only saw a 10th of the island, and we wished we had stayed at least a night there.
Isabel forgot her sunglasses, so we found a store selling heart shaped ones among other tourist things. We saw the Tori gate, which depending on the tide people can walk out to. Nearby was an iconic orange temple, but we skipped it.
We came to a temple and went in, removing our shoes. There was some great photo opportunities from the veranda. Also took photos of the tower and some other angles. We were also chasing cherry blossoms as this was one of the first opportunities for us to see them. This was also the only time we saw wisteria growing, as in other parts of Japan it hadn’t started to bloom yet.
We tried a dessert – soft serve ice-cream on sweet potato – it was kind of a sweet version of a baked potato and cream, absolutely delicious. Earlier in the day we also found an amazing cafe doing Vienna coffee, cheesecake with strawberry, and the ice cream I had was the best of the trip, made locally? Also for food vendors, we got a cucumber stick, which was surprisingly juicy, salty, bitter and tangy. I had been sitting in vinegar and was chilled. We also had a pork and chicken stick, meanwhile a deer was harassing another guy chewing into his bag.
There were ropeways to the peak of the island. It was weird up top, it was filled with tourists, too many people parked there mostly older people wanting to sit or take photos. There was a walk to several Buddhist temples, but it was too hot to explore and we made our way back down. I would have been happy to have missed this. Most people were also opting to take the complementary bus to the ropeway. But we were lucky not to, as it meant exploring a great photo opportunity at a red bridge. We spend 45 minutes exploring it, a zen garden and waterfall further ahead.
We went to Beams a funky shop to find diaries to purchase. One folded out continuously like an accordion, but we opted for a traditional book. The paper had flecks of rainbow, it was recycled from the origami cranes that are donated from people around the world to Hiroshima Peace Museum every year – they go on display for around a year before being repurposed. We also bought descriptive mugs which resembled the fish we’d eaten at our special dish the night before.
Returning to the food courts we purchased maple cakes – chocolate and peach – which have a long history of being made on this island. The people in front of us bought ten weird flat things, which the store clerk decoratively rolled up like parchment after purchasing. We later took a photo for a translation and found it to be a dried eel. At a nearby stall we also tried deep fried oysters. Nice to have, hot juicy and massive. But prefer them not deep fried.
On the return ferry were four junior school children carrying yellow cube backpacks the size of them and wearing yellow hats. They were catching the ferry and subsequent train by themselves. On the train we saw lots of people wearing baseball supporter gear coming in from the outer suburbs all wearing Carps gear.